Q: Is it hard to buy clothes for Piper Jane when she grows so fast? She is so tall! Does she need any special clothing?

A: It might seem like Piper Jane grows quickly, but she really doesn’t. I wonder if just by knowing her in her pictures, you can’t tell how small she really is. She is very small for her age, and only wears size 18 months for the most part. Size 18 months, and she is 4 years old! She is just a little pixie-pip, you see! There are some clothes, that she has been able to fit in for 2 or more years. Shoes she generally fits for about a year as well.

Also, yes, proportionally she is tall, but she is still very very short for her age. As well as her feet. People always comment on how big her feet are (even in person!), but she only wears a size four, which I think is about the size a one year old wears. She is really just a little mini thing. For reference, here is a picture of her with her friend Stella, who is her same age (by a matter of a few weeks).

This is a pretty old picture, but you can see that Pipsey is really just super small.

FYI, buying clothes for Piper Jane is one of my favorite pasttimes.

As for the second question, it’s not really a problem now, but when P was really young, we avoided anything that had to be pulled over her head. This is because she has a trach and had to be disconnected from her vent every time we changed her. She was so fragile that disconnecting her for literally 2 seconds just to put a shirt on, would likely make her go blue and pass out, needing to be ambu bagged to resaturate. So we would buy her things with buttons or zips down the front that she could be laid into.

When she was a newborn, I used to make her premie cloths. It was fun for me and I felt like I was kicking a** as a new mom, making my baby special clothes that might save her life by avoiding the vent disconnect-business. Here is a picture of the cheesy matchy strawberry outfits I made when she was just two months old. (I love matching mom/baby outfits. I love it! Also, Pip was only like 3 pounds here!! Also, I love that she is crying because it makes me remember that she was spicy from the start. I miss my babyyyyy!)

As for now, Piper Jane is pretty stable, so she can wear anything. It’s always a bonus if there are lots of buttons or a wrap type thing for her, but if necessary, she can be disconnected for a good 30 seconds and be fine in most cases.